RE:Canadian Regulators....New rules for short selling coming Terry Lynch, chief executive officer of Chilean Metals and founder of the advocacy group Save Canadian Mining, agreed. Save Canadian Mining has called for reinstating the tick test, a rule repealed in 2012 that prevented short selling on stock that was already in decline.
The Ontario taskforce didn’t recommend bringing back the tick test, but it did propose other substantial changes, including requiring shorters to confirm they can borrow the securities they’re attempting to short, and be subject to a mandatory buy-in if a sale fails to settle two days after the settlement date, or four days after the trading date.
The change would effectively end a practice known as naked shorting. Currently, short sellers are only required to have a “reasonable expectation” of settling a short trade, meaning they can short without actually having borrowed the stock – something that can be disruptive if the shorter cannot locate stock to buy back, creating more shares than actually exist in the market. Transactions must be settled in two days, but investors can have up to 10 days in exceptional circumstances.